Season preview: Will the Lions be able to join the ranks of back-to-back Grey Cup champions?

We've done team previews in our Three-Down Theatre series (each individual post is linked at the beginning of this final one) and talked with commissioner Mark Cohon about the state of the league from a business standpoint, so now it's time to take an overall look at the league similar to what we did last year. Remember, this CFL season starts Friday night with a doubleheader; the first game will feature Andy Fantuz's Hamilton Tiger-Cats taking on his former team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders (7 p.m. Eastern), while the second game's a rematch of the 2012 Grey Cup between B.C. and Winnipeg (10 p.m. Eastern). Toronto and Edmonton play Saturday at 7 p.m. Eastern, while Montreal and Calgary will face off at 7 p.m. Eastern Sunday. All games are on TSN in Canada and ESPN3 in the U.S., plus a variety of local and national radio broadcasts. It should be a great kickoff weekend, and one that sets the stage for an outstanding season that will culminate in the historic 100th Grey Cup.

If there's an overarching theme to this CFL season, it's the change in roles of the divisions. For most of the last decade, the East has been dominated by the Montreal Alouettes, with just about everyone else regularly rebuilding. (There were exceptions, of course, including Toronto's 2004 Grey Cup championship and Winnipeg's surprising runs to the title game in 2007 and 2011, but the East has four Grey Cup championships in 10 years to the West's six, and three of those came from the Alouettes, who were also runners-up in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2008.) Meanwhile, the West has been full of parity; every Western team's won a Grey Cup in that span, with only B.C. and Edmonton claiming two. Judging by this offseason, though, that seems to have flipped; it's now the East that looks dangerously deep with the always-fearsome Alouettes out for revenge following their early 2011 playoff exit, the Argonauts and Tiger-Cats looking to take big steps forward with new head coaches and new veteran quarterbacks, and the Bombers as reigning-and-still-scary division champions. The CFL has been known for its parity in recent years, but a lot of that has come from the deep West. Now, it's looking like the East that's legitimately up for grabs; any of these teams could come out on top in the regular-season standings without their victory being a massive shock, and they might go on to lose in the playoffs after that. It should be a season-long war of attrition out East, and it should be fascinating to watch.

It should be a season full of great individual performances, from B.C. receiver Geroy Simon setting the all-time receiving yards record (which could happen Friday night) to Montreal quarterback Anthony Calvillo continuing to defy time, Fantuz settling in in Hamilton and returning to form and Cornish and Andrew Harris continuing the rise of the Canadian running back. There will be plenty of thrilling on-field action, too, as most teams should have high-powered offences that will put up points. When all the dust has settled, though, the most likely outcome from this corner is B.C. knocking off Montreal in the 100th Grey Cup this November. It's the CFL, though, so absolutely anything can happen, and it will be well worth tuning in along the way to see just how the league will defy predictability this year.